Why The CJN Must End Abuse Of Power In Judicial Appointments

 By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu

A Judge who takes advantage of the judicial office for personal gain or for gain by his or her relative or relation abuses power…. such abuse of power profoundly violates the public’s trust in the judiciary. Code of Conduct for Judicial Officers of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Rule 8:3 (2016)

*Justice Kekere-Ekun-CJN

Eight and a half years ago, in May 2017, a viral audio clip circulated which was said to be a conversation between a male Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and a female judge who, in the preceding year, presided over an election petition involving the Senator.

In the sound-clip, both could be heard importuning one another. The female voice asked the Senator to ensure that whatever he delivered, he must “make it in USD” and sought reassurance from him in securing a job for her daughter in the public service of one of the states of the Niger Delta.

The male voice seemed deeply solicitous of her wishes in a conversation that did not leave much to the imagination in terms of both the subject matter and the quid pro quo.

It was believed at the time that the sound-clip involved a judge who served at the head of an election tribunal that dismissed a petition against the Senator in respect of a contest for a seat to the upper chamber of the National Assembly in one of the states in the Middle Belt of Nigeria in the 2015 general elections.

A subsequent petition to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) by some non-governmental organisations for an investigation into the sound-clip and its contents ultimately yielded little.

The principal characters in the dramatic sound-clip have since then gone on to prosper in a fashion that Nigeria uniquely makes possible. After being eventually extinguished from his seat, the distinguished Senator opted to read for a degree in law. The contents of the sound-clip were not an issue when in July 2025, first the Body of Benchers admitted him to the Nigerian Bar and then the Supreme Court duly enrolled him to practice as a lawyer in the country.

In February 2021, the judge widely alleged to have been the voice in the sound-clip rose to become the Chief Judge of a State High Court in one of the six states of the Niger Delta.

It appears the daughter mentioned in the sound-clip eventually got the promised job. Her career as a State Counsel prospered in meteoric fashion. 13 years into her life as lawyer, in the last quarter of 2025, she got promoted to become an Assistant Director in the Ministry of Justice.

In the second week of January 2026, she will visit Abuja where a committee of the National Judicial Council (NJC) presided over by a senior Justice of the Supreme Court will interview her for the highly coveted position of a seat on the Bench of the Federal High Court. She goes in with insider advantage against a candidate ten years her senior at the bar and who, it seems, was actually was ahead of her on merit.

That seat is one of 14 judicial vacancies in the Federal High Court to be filled in the first quarter of 2026. In all, the NJC committee is reportedly scheduled to interview 28 candidates over a period of three days. 24 of the candidates are from 12 states and territories in Nigeria, namely: Abia, Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Enugu, Imo, Kaduna, Kwara, Plateau, Sokoto, Taraba, Zamfara, and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

The NJC Committee will include at least two retired Justices of the Supreme Court; a retired Justice of the Court of Appeal; the current president of the Nigerian Bar Association, and one of his more recent predecessors. The Committee will also interview four candidates from Nasarawa State, which has two vacancies.

The Federal Judicial Service Commission (FJSC) did the shortlisting for the 28 candidates. That stage of the process involved, among other evaluations, a computer-based test (CBT) and an aptitude test in relation to both of which each candidate is scored but the scores are not published. It is no surprise that such an opaque process lends itself to deserved controversy around three issues.

First, some “unsuccessful” candidates have accused “judicial authorities of manipulating results and shortlisting candidates who allegedly failed the qualifying examination.” It is claimed that some of the candidates on the final shortlist of 28 scored as low as 30% or even 25%.

One person alleged specifically that “the name of the person who scored the highest in the test was excluded from the list”, claiming that the person was a candidate from a state in south-east Nigeria. This will not be a first time that such an allegation will be made in relation to judicial appointments into the Federal High Court. As long as the FJSC and the NJC remain unwilling to publish the scores of all the candidates, it is impossible to discount these allegations.

Second, at its 108th meeting on April 29-30, 2025, the NJC decided that “henceforth, the FJSC, all judicial service commissions or committee of the FCT, shall publish the names of all candidates recommended for judicial appointment. The primary objective of this initiative is to solicit comments from the general public regarding the integrity, reputation, and suitability of these candidates for judicial office.”

At the time, this seemed impressive. In reality, it was a sleight of hand. The grounds for public input at this impractical stage defined by the NJC are limited to issues of “integrity, reputation, and suitability” of the recommended candidates. But if a decision has been made to recommend a candidate, then these issues would already have been considered. In effect, by the time a candidate is “recommended” for judicial office, the effective opportunities for public objection have in fact been foreclosed.

Third, therefore, the only viable ground at this stage for objection to the process would be the integrity of the appointment process itself. This is arguably the most important issue engaged by this present appointment round into the Federal High Court Bench. Rule 11(iv) of the Judicial Code of Conduct requires that “in the exercise of his administrative duties, a Judicial Officer should avoid nepotism and favoritism.”

Yet, it is difficult not to look upon the short-list that the NJC committee will be interviewing next month as anything other than an advertisement of nepotism and favouritism. The list is rich with children or candidates of serving or retired senior judges, some of them involved in the process.

The judicial daughter mentioned earlier in this piece is by no means the only insider on the list. The candidate to be appointed from Kaduna State, for instance, is guaranteed to be a second generation judge; both candidates to be interviewed from the state are scions of former judges. Of the two candidates from Abia State, one is the child of a serving judge.

Akwa Ibom State also features a preferred candidate who works with and is adopted by a serving senior judge who may himself even be involved in the interview process. Taraba State has a similar story and these are just random examples.
This pattern populates the entire shortlist without disguise or shame.

Humanity elsewhere does not know a thing like the judicial gene. It only exists in Nigeria. One tweep describes what passes for judicial appointment process in Nigeria as “filiality via conjugality.”

It seems evident that Nigeria’s process of judicial appointments has become largely performative, rigged to the pre-determined end of preferring children into judicial hereditaments occupied or recently vacated by their parents or patrons. Rather perversely, the so-called reform decided upon by the NJC in April 2025 of publishing the names of candidates “recommended” for judicial office is designed entirely to lend legitimacy to a pre-determined process in clear violation of the Judicial Code of Conduct.

The Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) has an opportunity in this present round of hires to the Federal High Court Bench to course-correct. As a first step, she should publish the scores of all candidates throughout the process. That will reassure the public about her commitment to liberating judicial appointments in Nigeria from continuing abduction by the forces of capture, conjugality and abuse of power.
*Odinkalu, a lawyer and teacher, can be reached at chidi.odinkalu@tufts.edu